Compositions prepared in advance, on various phases of bird-life, may be read by their young authors. These may be the result of work previously done in class along the lines before mentioned, or of new observations and experiences gathered for Bird-Day. The greater the variety of topics, the better.
Descriptions of individual birds, comparisons of birds, individually or by classes, as to:
_Food._--Character; where, when, and how obtained.
_Home._--Location; materials; construction; appearance.
_Young._--Number; appearance; care and education.
_Songs and Calls._--Emotions expressed; character, short or sustained, high or low, sweet or harsh, etc.
_Relations._--Names of other birds of same class.
_Bird Craftsmen._--Masons, miners, weavers, tailors, etc.
_Tree-top Neighbors._--Spring, summer, fall and winter.
_Invitations to the Birds._--Boxes put up for them; seed-cups, bits of suet nailed to posts or trees.
Stories may be told by teachers or pupils with accompanying illustrations hastily sketched on the black-board as the story progresses. The following lend themselves readily to this work:
'The Ugly Duckling,' 'The Daisy and the Lark,' Hans Christian Anderson; 'The White Heron,' Sarah Orne Jewett; 'The White Blackbird,' Guy de Maupassant; 'The Crane Express,' Child World; 'The Crow and the Pitcher,' 'The Fox and the Crane,' 'The Crane and the Crows,' Æsop's Fables.
'Nest Egg,' Robert Louis Stevenson; 'Anxiety,' George Macdonald; 'The Song Sparrow,' 'The Veery,' Dr. van Dyke; 'The One in the Middle,' Margaret Eytinge; 'The Bluebird,' Emily Huntington Miller; 'The Peter Bird,' Henry Thompson Stanton; 'The Robin,' Celia Thaxter; 'Brother Robin,' Mrs. Anderson; 'The Birds' Orchestra,' Celia Thaxter; 'The Sandpiper,' 'Little Birdies,' Tennyson; 'The Brown Thrush,' Lucy Larcom; 'The Titmouse,' Emerson; 'The Stormy Petrel,' Barry Cornwall; 'The Sorrowful Sea Gull,' Child World; 'Robert of Lincoln,' 'The Return of the Birds,' Bryant; 'The Blackbird,' Alice Cary; 'The Crow's Children,' 'The Chicken's Mistake,' Phoebe Cary; 'What the Birds Said,' Whittier.
At our request, Dr. A. K. Fisher has furnished the following notes on the spring migration. They are based on fifteen years' observation and will therefore prove valuable as a guide, and interesting for comparison, to other observers. A list of Mississippi Valley migrants, which we expected to receive, unfortunately arrived too late for publication, while a list from Philadelphia, by Mr. Witmer Stone, is necessarily omitted for lack of space.--Ed.